Southeast Asia liner trades escape Hanjin debacle with as few injuries as possible
 THE Southeast Asia-Australia Service (AUS but also known as ASAL) group has acted swiftly to minimise disruption from the collapse of Hanjin Shipping, with the shipping line finally declared bankrupt by South Korean courts.
This came with the unexpected announcement North East Asia and Australia (NEAX) founder MOL was to exit that consortium in the north and east Asia trade and instead join Maersk’s Boomerang service from May this year, a move which also meant the Japanese carrier would also depart from the Triple A group, reported Lloyds List Australia.
Meanwhile, there have been changes in some of the Southeast Asia-via-east coast Australia-New Zealand services and group compositions, as shipping lines look for suitable partners, partly in response to shipping alliance re-arrangements in global east-west trades.
ASAL members China Shipping/Cosco, Hapag-Lloyd, OOCL and UASC were enjoying a steady year until Hanjin collapsed.
The 3,500-TEU Hanjin California was held at sea off the New South Wales coast for several days pending the arrangement of suitable guarantees before berthing at Hutchison Ports Australia’s Sydney International Container Terminal at Port Botany on September 2.
On September 5 while still at berth it was arrested by Glencore Singapore Pte Ltd over an unpaid bunker bill of US$430,000. The vessel was finally released from arrest by the Federal Court of Australia on October 4 and sailed for Singapore the following day.
Meanwhile, the ASAL members quickly chartered a replacement vessel, the jointly-operated 4,253-TEU Seaspan Lumaco, which took Hanjin California’s next scheduled southbound sailing and has remained in the service since. It is about to be replaced by another joint vessel, the 4,526-TEU OOCL Busan.
While the Hapag-Lloyd contribution remains the 4,591-TEU HS Shackleton and OOCL’s the 4,526 TEU-OOCL Le Havre, Cosco Shipping has replaced Xin Quan Zhou with the 4,254-TEU JPO Virgo, and the former UASC Jeddah has been renamed CPO Jacksonville, but it remained in ASAL service on UASC charter.
NYK left the Asia Australia Express (AAX) service in April 2016, leading to the departure of the 5,466-TEU Wide India and its replacement by the ANL/CMA CGM-supplied 5,668-TEU Xin Da Lian, the sister of which, Xin Lian Yun Gang, had joined AAX almost simultaneously in place of the 6,572-TEU CMA CGM Lamartine.
Vessel swaps have characterised this service over the past 12 months, including the 5,770-TEU CMA CGM Chopin and CMA CGM Wagner being replaced in September and November respectively by the 5,060-TEU ANL Woomera and the 4,922-TEU Mongoose Hunter.
While all this was happening CMA CGM was busy buying APL - a deal now completed - so that AAX is an all-CMA CGM Group affair.
The imminent departure of MOL to Boomerang will trigger change in the Triple A consortium from May. The remaining full members OOCL and PIL have opted not to seek additional participants and part-member Yang Ming Line will revert to slot-charterer status.
In May last year, Triple A added direct calls at Thailand’s Laem Chabang to the Torres Loop and it is understood these will remain under the new format – but Brisbane will be dropped from the port rotation. Brisbane cargoes are likely to be shifted to the NZS service. The port rotation is expected to be: Singapore, Fremantle, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Fremantle, Singapore, Port Klang, Laem Chabang, Singapore, but this is yet to be confirmed.
For now the two-string operation continues, with the Torres Loop employing five ships and the Bight Loop four.
With regards to the NZS/Kiwi International Express (KIX) service, NYK was "evicted" from the NZS consortium in December 2016 and joined Maersk as a slot charterer alongside MOL. Cosco Shipping became a vessel-provider in NZS, while ANL put in a second ship, replacing APL which thereafter took slots with PIL.
Some tonnage-substitution has occurred, including the Cosco-chartered 4,957 TEU Wiking replacing the NYK Futago. The 5,029-TEU ANL Whyalla replaced APL’s Sri Lanka, and the OOCL-chartered 5,042-TEU Sydney Trader took over from the 4,249-TEU Argos.
As for the Maersk Boomerang service, since the first quarter of 2016, Maersk has been upsizing the Boomerang fleet, replacing the 4,154- to 4,658-TEU ships owned by Maersk and its subsidiary, Safmarine with a number of chartered units.
MOL is expected to have three ships in the Boomerang service when the new membership arrangements take effect in May. Meanwhile, the sole MSC contribution has gone from the 4,992-TEU MSC Panama to the 4,469-TEU MSC Eugenia to the 4,800-TEU MSC Sao Paulo (MSC does not participate in the Southeast Asia loop of Boomerang).
As for the Maersk Northern Star/Southern Star services, the Northern Star then became a six-ship fleet operated by Maersk vessels with a capacity of around 2,824 TEU. In early October 2016 Tauranga calls were added to Northern Star, in connection with the revamp of Triple Star.
Southern Star has seen only one fleet change, with the 4,057-TEU Safmarine-branded Safmarine Nokwanda transferred to the AC1 service and replaced by the 4,258-TEU Lars Maersk, joining four sister ships.
The New Zealand-Southeast Asia shuttle Triple Star is now a North Asia-New Zealand-North Asia service, with the northbound and southbound legs de-coupled. In August 2016 Maersk inaugurated the new southbound Triple Star by incorporating Tauranga calls in its new AC1/South Pacific Express service between North and East Asia and the west coast South America/Central America.
This was followed by the northbound component in October 2016, with Tauranga added to the AC3 Central America/WCSA-N & EA service. The former is operated by 11 x 4,500 TEU ships and the latter by 12 x 9,600 TEU vessels.
MSC Capricorn/Australian Express Service (AES): The Capricorn service focuses on Australian imports from Southeast Asia and New Zealand exports (plus Brisbane), while the Australia Express Service (formerly Falcon) covers Australian exports to Southeast on the way to the Indian Subcontinent, Middle East, East Africa, Mediterranean and northwest Europe.
AES is resuming monthly calls to Esperance in western Australia, to load containerized nickel for transshipment in Singapore. As per longstanding MSC practice, fleet turnover in both services is usually high, although 2016-17 has seen Capricorn almost constant with five ships ranging between 2,732 TEU and 3,534 TEU.
AES has continued to employ larger ships, and now has 14 deployed ranging in size from 5,042 TEU to 7,847 TEU. MSC continues to regularly replace northbound AES ships in Singapore with larger vessels.
The CMA CGM/Hapag-Lloyd New North Europe Med Oceania (NEMO)/Europe Australia Express (EAX) service has finally completed its year-long transition to larger tonnage as existing charters for the previously-uniform, 13-strong 4,250-TEU fleet expired and bigger, cascading ships became available. CMA CGM now provides seven 5,770-TEU vessels, while Hapag-Lloyd supplies six ships ranging in size from 5,527 to 5,908 TEU.
The new NEMO/EAX, with its three Indian Sub-continent direct calls, has become a major beneficiary of the boom in Australian exports to India.
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